3 thoughts on “FOI reveals a gem of pomposity from the BCITF 1993 Annual Report re the Dawesville Cut project haunted by the now famous Australian Workers Union Workplace Reform Association (AWUWRA)”

Wow, Warwick I suppose this has been passed on Michael Smith who will no doubt pass it onto the police. In this the government thought it was the AWU when it was actually the AWURA which in fact was illegal as it did not have 5 or more members. One has to wonder if any minister in the WA Government knew that this was a scam.

Hi Cementafriend; Warwick’s FOI has been provided to Michael Smith and IMO is the most important documentary evidence as to what monies were actually paid in respect to Dawesville – although unfortunately cheque payees are not available for the 93/94 BCITF recorded ledger payments; Dr John Lourens has a paper which you can get access to at the foot of this post www.michaelsmithnews.com/2013/01/the-bcitf-money-paid-to-thiess-at-dawesville-a-scholarly-paper-by-dr-john-lourens-fcpa.html
titled Reflections on the Thiess funding submission to the BCITF – this was the up front grant application. The BCITF ultimately accepted Option 2. A huge component of that option was software development
As to what the Hitchen Review thought about the BCITF expenditure on this project (copy available from here www.voced.edu.au/content/ngv41978
The Dawesville Project involved providing training to a number of plant operators involved
with the large earthmoving equipment on the Dawesville Cut. As well as on-site training the
project involved the development of CD ROM computer based training modules which it is
intended will be marketed to the industry. The Review has concerns about a number of aspects
of the project including whether the training undertaken was consistent with the application
approved. On a cost-benefit basis the 278 hours of training (applied to 30 operators, of whom
only 12 were still employed on the project at the time of final assessment) does not appear to
represent “value for money”. It is appreciated the proposal also was to develop the “best
model of the practical implementation of all facets of the reform process in civil operations”.
However the Review doubts that a responsibility or objective of the BCITF is the above or is
to “play a major role in influencing training in civil operations throughout Australia and South
East Asia”.
Back to my comment – yes, the Dawesville project was a model all right but not one you should follow if you want value or anything else for money keeping in mind that there is a question as to whether any of this went to Wilson’s sham association which didn’t even on Wilson’s testimony provide a service for the first 12 months

Going to be an interesting couple of months for sea ice. SH close to an anomaly record at 1.7 million sq km. While NOOA is forecasting a 0.5 million sq km +ve NH anomaly in September, the first in over 20 years.